


Insomnia

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, I apologize for the feels, YASSSSSSS, but I would like to remind you that this is canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9684671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Right after Dante died, Caitlin made sure that Cisco wasn't alone.





	

Caitlin had refused to go home even long enough to retrieve pajamas, so he’d given her a clean Pokemon Gym Leader t-shirt and a pair of Dr. Who boxers. She hadn’t passed comment on either one of the designs, even though normally she would have rolled her eyes for ages. She’d just taken them into the bathroom with her when she went to wash up for bed.

She was asleep now, her feet sticking out of the bottom of the quilt, her face burrowed into his spare pillow and her arms tucked up under it. He considered her position, thought he probably couldn’t sit on the end of the couch by her feet without waking her up, and tucked himself into the armchair as quietly as he could.

But she stirred. “‘ey,” she mumbled.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Sorry I woke you.” Across the room, the clock on the stove glowed 2:14 am.

“S'okay,” she said. “I wake up sometimes. You okay?”

 _My brother is dead,_ he thought, and it hit him like a punch right to the solar plexus all over again. 

When he didn’t answer, she lifted her head from the pillow. Her hair frizzed around her face, which looked pale and drawn without her makeup - or maybe because she’d basically been here since he’d gotten the phone call, two days ago. “Cisco?”

He shrugged, still working on breathing normally.

“You want to talk?”

“No,” he mumbled.

Everyone wanted to talk. His mama and his brother’s friends and his relatives. Barry, Iris, Joe, Wally. Talk to us, Cisco. How are you doing, Cisco? This must be so hard, Cisco.

Everyone wanted to talk. He felt all talked out, all cried out, dried and desiccated and husked, with no strength or energy to do anything. Definitely not write and give Dante’s eulogy.

His _eulogy._

For fuck’s sake.

“Okay,” she said softly.

He picked at a fuzzy on the knee of his flannel sleep pants. Even though Central City was suffering a heat wave, he’d felt cold clear through for the past two days. “Is it all right if I watch TV?”

He could watch TV in his room, on his tablet, where the flickering blue of the screen wouldn’t light up the whole living room. But she said, “'Course,” and put her head back down.

He cast around. “You got the remote?” She tended to leave it wherever when she was over, which drove him crazy because he’d built a stand for it for a reason.

“Oh,” she said. “Somewhere.” She reached up to the end table behind her head, her hand spidering around until she found it, and held it out.

He came to get it. Since he was there and she was awake, he sat down on the end of the couch, nudging her feet until she curled up her legs enough so he wouldn’t sit on them. He was flipping through the options on Netflix when she settled her feet against the side of his leg.

He looked over at her. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“My feet are cold.”

Hell, yeah, they were. “I have socks.”

She curled her icy little toes against his thigh and burrowed her cheek into the pillow. He settled back against the cushions, twitching the quilt down until it covered her feet and part of his lap.

He turned the TV down low, so that the crew of Serenity mumbled their lines and mimed their emotions. He’d seen this episode so many times that he could probably recite it, but he didn’t.

While Jayne and Mal bar-brawled in near-silence, he reached out and put his hand on the side of her knee, just to be touching her. He’d thought she was asleep again already, but her hand drifted down from where it was curled next to her chest, and covered his. Their fingers wove together.

He thought again, _My brother is dead,_ and it hurt just as much as before. He closed his eyes and breathed, and held onto Caitlin’s hand as hard as he could.

FINIS


End file.
